by Oui
Fri Feb 14th, 2020 at 06:31:10 PM EST
These events stick in my mind as a reminder, true leaders in the world seek peace between nations. Avoid war where possible, don't wager on perceived advantage of might to attack another nation. Use of unipolar power to bully and bribe other nations into submission is morally wrong and will lead to military conflict.
It has been said and written, in the 21st American Century, diplomacy is an art put at the wayside. After the 9/11 attacks on America, the world changed forever. The bully pulpit of George Bush and his neocons strategists couldn't accept the source of Al Qaeda wasn't located in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda was build on Osama bin Laden, son of a very rich building contractor in Saudi Arabia. Wealth from Saudis, royalty included, funded the Wahhabist mission across the globe. Preachers with a predetermined mindset of extremism were send to mosques across Western Europe, North Africa, Middle East (Lebanon and Syria included), Caucuses, former Soviet satellite states and across South East Asia.
The domino effect of the spread of Communism was halted, the spread of extremist Saudi Wahhabism was encouraged and coopted with western intelligence agencies for ulterior motives. In Afghanistan and the Caucasus to harm the Soviet Union and in a later stage, the Russian Federation.
Western intelligence has played a belligerent role above and beyond politics ever since the Great War 1940-45 and the formation of OSS under Allen Welsh Dulles. America, France and Great Britain made use of the Nazi Reich officials, kept them in place in order to battle Communism and the Soviet threat from the East. NATO was established and committed to avoid another war by Germany, but soon under British leadership targeted the Soviet "threat" of Communism. During the war against Nazi Germany, the Soviet Army of Joseph Stalin has grown into a formidable foe. During the years of Allied occupation of West-Germany and Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, both sides acquired the power of atom bombs and forced a stalemate or the Cold War.
○ Bologna station bombing, Gladio, the "war on terror"
More below the fold ...
Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and british Prime Minister Winston Churchill (left to right) at the Teheran Conference, 1943. (Library of Congress)
Today the world leaders are at a crossroad once again, courageous leaders much choose a path for peace in this troubled world.
However, even during the Eisenhower-Nixon and Kennedy years, there were efforts for diplomacy, cultural exchange and sporting events. Because of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the Olympic games of Moscow in 1980 were boy-cotted. So were the games in Los Angeles of 1984, a quid-pro-quo of two powerful blocks of nations. The 1984 games were a turning point for the Olympic message to the world: a commercial success for the event is doable.
The trillion dollar corporations from Silicon Valley, FAANG, digital revolution, IBM machines and backdoors ...
After the fall of Communism in 1989, the world took a deep breath and the military expansion took a dive for the worse (or good really). In the 90s, the Wahhabist terror of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden spread across the Muslim world. The terror attacks spread across the globe from the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the dubble U.S. Embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Furthermore, there were distinct Al Qaeda terror actions across the Indonesian and Philippine archipelago of Islands. In all the instances of AQ terror, the funding came from the Gulf States and the extremist form of the Islam.
A lot of Saudi wealth supported the cause of Osama! Later the "missionary" efforts in mosques everywhere were also supported by other Gulf States, especially the Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar (Muslim Brotherhood).
Not satisfied with the destruction inside Afghanistan, the United States and certain western partners invaded and occupied Iraq as a few years later their proxies were send to Libya (briefly Egypt until the coup by Gen. Sisi) and Syria. A split and competition developed between the Salafists of Gulf States with the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt (president Morsi), Turkey and Qatar. Hamas in Gaza was supported and funded by the latter MB states. See also the terror in the Sinai.
Ever since the Bush inflicted War on Terror on the world, terror has increased, multiplied a tenfold with a steady increase of deaths in dozens of nations. There is no end in sight. The use of proxy fighters and mercenaries or private armies has become a scourge. The unrest in the embattled nations has spread to other nations as refugees seek a better life elsewhere. Xenophobia and Islamophobia spread into Europe and triggered politicians to extreme rightwing policy and an Anglo-Saxon brand of Conservatism.
As the planet burns and suffers from extreme temperatures and weather, the authoritarian regimes are building fortunes of wealth for their oligarchs. Is anyone out there still optimistic? I for one am convinced the cycle of global warming has passed the threshold of no-return.
Between toughness and talking: 75 years since Yalta | The New Statesman |
At the Yalta Conference 75 years ago, as the Red Army was taking control of eastern Europe, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met to plan the peace. What did the "Big Three" want? And what did they get?
Leningrad: War on the Eastern Front - Video
[...]
Roosevelt and Churchill were both fascinated by face-to-face diplomacy, and each believed himself a master of the art. In March 1942, before meeting the Soviet leader and having exchanged only a half-dozen messages with him, Roosevelt told Churchill: "I think I can personally handle Stalin better than either your Foreign Office or my state department. Stalin hates the guts of all your top people. He thinks he likes me better, and I hope he will continue to do so." In January 1944, Churchill told an old friend: "If only Stalin and I could meet once a week, there would be no trouble at all. We get on like a house on fire." Of course, the prime minister's moods were volatile and, as an inveterate anti-Bolshevik, he feared that the red tide might engulf Europe, but that prompted him to engage in personal summitry with "Uncle Joe" in the hope of reducing the danger.
Stalin had proved reluctant to meet until he felt in a strong enough position to match the Anglo-American duo, and this did not occur until after the Red Army's victory at Kursk in July 1943 and its subsequent advance into the Ukraine. The Big Three convened for the first time at Tehran in November 1943. A year later Stalin was even better placed, with Soviet troops flooding into eastern Europe, from Poland to Bulgaria. He insisted on meeting at Yalta, an old Tsarist resort on the southern coast of Crimea, rejecting all attempts by his two allies to find a more accessible location in the Mediterranean. Stalin was scared of flying and reluctant to venture outside the Soviet security net, so Yalta suited him fine. Churchill, by contrast, grumbled: "We could not have found a worse place for a meeting if we had spent ten years looking for it."
This week in Germany, the former stronghold of Nazi Germany, commemoration of 75 years after the Leipzig bombing by Allied Air Force ...
○ Dresden marks WWII bombing in far-right stronghold | DW |
In an effort to force a surrender, the Dresden bombing was intended to terrorize the civilian population locally and nationwide. It certainly had that effect.
Dresden Bombing: A Barrage of Explosives and Incendiaries
In the time that Vonnegut and others hid underground, the British Bomber Command's Blind Illuminator aircraft had rained explosives and incendiaries over the city. Then, "visual marker" aircraft swooped low to drop thousands of flares and fire-target markers. The main attack formation followed: over 500 heavy "Lancaster" bombers loaded with explosives and incendiaries. The U.S. Eighth Air Force attacked the next day with another 400 tons of bombs and launched yet another raid with 210 bombers on February 15.
○ Flying V1 attack in London, June 1944
